My Name
by crankthatphan
Summary: Something's wrong with Stiles, and Derek goes a liiittle bit crazy trying to figure out what the problem is. [Established Sterek ; based on the song "My Name (Wearing Me Out)" by Shinedown]
1. Worthless

Derek and Stiles are one week away from their three month anniversary. They'd been attracted to each other since day one (though at first Stiles was more interested in Derek than Derek was in him), and now they've been dating for almost three entire months. Needless to say, they're pretty excited (Derek doesn't express it as much as Stiles does, but whatever). Derek isn't sure how they're going to celebrate, so he's leaving the decision up to Stiles.

The boy can choose to do anything his heart desires. Except have sex, which the Sheriff has politely threatened Derek about multiple times since the relationship started.

 _"You sure you two will be okay by yourselves?"_

 _"Yes, Dad, we'll be fine."_

 _"You'll be here for hours."_

 _"Dad."_

 _"It is the weekend."_

 _"You're going to be late, Dad."_

 _"Meaning Stiles, my underage son, doesn't have to walk properly in order to get to his classes.."_

 _"Oh my fucking God, Dad-"_

 _"And we did just recently get wolfsbane."_

 _"Dad! Stop talking."_

But there was nothing to worry about. As much as Derek wants to take advantage of Stiles' small, young body, he isn't going to. He'd feel terrible about himself. Plus he'd get murdered, very brutally, and that isn't something that sounded even remotely pleasant.

Though.., Derek isn't sure if Stiles wants to be his boyfriend for much longer. Recently, the teenager has been really... distant. His smiles went from full of sunshine to full of thunderstorms. His eyes don't sparkle as much anymore, not even when he's eating his beloved curly fries. His kisses aren't as gentle and sweet, and sometimes he doesn't even kiss Derek back.

For the past few days, Stiles has smelled different. "Different" as in he smells like someone else, along with makeup. It's an unfamiliar scent; Stiles smells like Scott or Liam sometimes, but this new scent is peculiar and not homely like the aroma of his friends. The chemicals of the makeup hide it pretty well, but Derek can still smell the semi-permanent hatred. He's even started memorizing it, accepting it as a part of the boy.

And Stiles.. Fear. He smells like fear.

And Derek doesn't like it, not one bit.

He's asked about it, but Stiles always insists he's fine. Then they go on to have an argument, and Stiles ends up one of two ways: crying on the floor, or pressed against the wall. Both preferred the latter, and that one was fortunately what happened ninety-nine percent of the time.

And then there's today.

Today their screaming match ended with Stiles on his knees, bawling his eyes out, begging for Derek to stay, and Derek, with an empty void in his chest and a dark look in his eye, impolitely slamming the front door on his way out.

But let's rewind for a second.

Derek "sneaked in" to the house after Sheriff Stilinski left for work (he was actually let in just _before_ the Sheriff left, but Derek likes making Stiles think he's even more of a badass than he actually is - he loves Stiles rubbing all over his muscles and stroking his ego, sue him) and was sitting on the couch, in the dark, for hours until Stiles got home from school.

"Hey." he says casually after the teenager flicks on the lights, making him stagger backwards out of surprise and fall onto his butt.

Derek, suppressing laughter, quickly gets up and helps his boyfriend stand. Stiles puts a hand over his heart, which is pounding into oblivion, and looks at the man with a bewildered look on his face.

"What the hell are doing here in the dark, Derek? You scared the shit out of me!"

"Guess that means I need to change your diaper?" That earns him a slap on the arm.

" _Seriously_ , Derek, you could have _at least_ left a note on the door! Or maybe sat with the lights _on_? Or texted me saying you were here? I don't even see your car, where is your car?"

"You must be losing your vision. My car is definitely out there."

Stiles turns around, and sure enough, Derek's gorgeous black Camaro is right there in plain sight. A soft "Oh.." escapes his lips and he closes the door before turning to face his beau.

Derek holds out his arms, and Stiles flinches ever so slightly as he raises them. That's when Derek finally realizes that the weird smell is back.

He pretends to not notice.

Stiles goes into Derek's embrace. He doesn't melt into the werewolf's arms like he used to when they first started dating. He feels like a rock, a rock with limbs and moles dotting the smooth, delicate surface. Derek holds the boy closer, and thoughts - probably not very good thoughts - start running through his mind.

Why does Stiles smell like this? Why on Earth would Stiles be so intimate with someone who feels such awful emotions and thinks such vile thoughts? Maybe Derek isn't one to talk - he's one of the most Negative Ned's known to mankind. But that's beyond the point.

It can't be that Stiles is cheating on him, no; for some weird reason, not many people are into the lanky, clumsy cutie. Plus Stiles is way too pure to do such a thing.

So then what could it be...?

"Stiles?" Derek finds himself saying.

"Hmm?"

"Is everything okay?"

The boy's heart flutters a bit, and Derek can feel him roll his eyes. "We've been over this, Sourwolf. I am a-okay. You don't need to worry about me."

At this point, Derek would pretend to agree that everything is fine, but he isn't in that mood today. He lets go of his angel and gives him a cold glare.

"Tell me the truth, Stilinski. Are you all right?"

Stiles' heart flutters some more and he looks at Derek as if he grew another head. Something flickers in his eyes and he goes from surprised to concerned to angry. "What's it to you?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Why the hell do you care if I'm okay or not?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe because I'm your boyfriend?"

"That's something I find pretty funny. This really hot werewolf guy comes into town and befriends a bunch of teenage weirdos. He hates me for the entire first year of knowing me, and then he all of a sudden is in love with me. Me. The guy who obsesses over 'geek culture' and rambles about stuff no one cares about and is kind of a useless piece of shit."

"Stiles, don't fucking talk about yourself like that. I've told you, I didn't hate you. You were annoying as hell, but I adored everything about you, and I still do."

"You still do, huh? You don't act like it. Never have, really. You could hug anyone. You could kiss anyone. You could admire anyone. When am I gonna get the full affection I _so rightfully deserve_ , Derek? Hm?"

Derek narrows his eyes, and the anger in Stiles' dies. Neither of the two say anything for several moments. They stare at each other in silence.

That is, until Stiles drops to his knees, tears brimming his beautiful golden-brown eyes. "Derek," he whispers helplessly. "I.. I'm so sorry.. I wasn't thinking when I said all of that.."

He knows Stiles is telling the truth, and he wants nothing more than to wrap him in his arms and coo sweet nothings in his ear until the gross sobbing stops. But Derek refuses to let himself feel pity. Not with Stiles hiding so much from him.

"I love you so fucking much, Derek, please.."

Derek freezes, and so does Stiles. That's the first time that's been said, by either one of them. I love you. It sounds so foreign.

Derek believes it.

He believes it a lot.

But he can't let his guard down.

He turns on his heel, causing Stiles' tears to fall harder.

"Derek, please, stay! I'm so sorry, Derek, I love you!"

is the last thing Derek hears before slamming the door shut behind him.

And now we're here again.

Derek slams the door to his loft as well, but not as hard as he'd have liked to because he doesn't want to have to repair the damage he's sure he'd do. He looks around the space, memories of the conversations and hot make-out sessions he and Stiles have shared in here immediately flooding into his mind. Naturally, his hands go into his hair.

And he screams.

He screams at Stiles for keeping secrets. He screams at himself for not being there for the boy. He screams at the pack for doing the same. He screams at Kate for fucking up his life, fucking up his emotions. He screams at the world for being against him. He screams until he starts crying, and he cries until his mind tells him to stop being so weak. Until his mind tells him that he needs to toughen up, because Stiles needs a man who will snap anyone's neck on command. A man who will hold him close every night, not letting him go in case something were to hurt him.

A man who will find out what the hell is going on with his boyfriend. A man who will fight for said boyfriend until the very end. A man who will ruin whatever is troubling the teen.


	2. Empty

Werewolves may be incapable of getting drunk off their asses, but that isn't stopping Derek from drowning his sorrows in bottle after bottle of tequila. He's ignoring the obnoxious vibrations of his phone - which is probably indicating a plethora of apology texts from Stiles, or angry 'WHY THE HELL IS STILES CRYING?' texts from Scott and/or Lydia - by watching some Japanese action movie and stuffing his face with overly-cheesy nachos. Laura would kill him if she saw him doing this. Maybe it's a good thing she can't.

No.  
Derek shouldn't be thinking like that.

But how can he keep his mind from wandering to such dark places? Everything is wrong, so terribly wrong, and he doesn't have anyone's shoulder to [secretly] lean on. Laura was the only person he'd let see him cry without minding, and she's gone. Stiles made him calm, but we all know how that turned out. The pack would usually be there to support him (unbeknownst to them most of the time), but word's probably gotten around by now, so they probably hate him for making Stiles cry. Derek most definitely isn't going to be there for himself. There's no one to rely on right now.

Right now, the bottle is his best friend, even though it's doing fuck-all to help.  
But whatever.  
It still tastes good.

Everything seems to be irritating him - the fact that Stiles is hiding something, the fact that the couch smells like Stiles, Stiles, how pretty the cherry blossoms are, how small the subtitles are, _how much cheese he put on these damn nachos_. He's getting overwhelmed, and he really wants to break something, but he also doesn't want to have to go out and buy another of the thing he'd have broken.

Life is so complicated.

It really doesn't help that everything reminds him of the boy whose pretty eyes he'd contaminated with the poisonous drops secreting from his tear glands (Damn.. he's so upset he's starting to sound poetic). Looking at every inch of the room draws a picture - the corner Stiles made him stand in for twenty minutes to ' _Think about what you did_ ' after stealing a small handful of Skittles from the teen, the floor where they've spent countless hours reading up on whatever creature is plaguing the town that month and sharing small glances (and sweet kisses, as of recent) on, and the table where Stiles once left his cell phone in a pizza box that Derek would have thrown away if people (specifically the Sheriff; that man is checking in almost every second he knows Stiles is with Derek) weren't so protective of Stiles and blowing up his phone asking why he wasn't responding (Derek returned the device to it's panicking owner shortly after finding it, which was about an hour after Stiles left).

Even the couch his sulking ass is planted on is painful to be around. Derek made his first move on this couch. Everyone showed up at Derek's door with a stack of DVDs, bags of corn that had yet to have been popped, and a pan of brownies (which was what made Derek allow them in). They made the popcorn, put on some Leonardo DiCaprio movie (as per Lydia's demand and Kira's much more polite request), and settled down. Stiles was lazily leaning into the couch between Derek, Isaac, and Liam. The boy was usually a bit anxious, but he was very zen that day, and that made Derek relaxed as well.

About halfway through the movie, Derek subconsciously put his arm around the human.

Stiles tensed, and his heartbeat sped up.

Derek thought he messed up and was about to move his arm away before the boy leaned closer, resting his head on the man's chest.

Derek suppressed the smile that wanted to spread across his face and instead looked around at everyone else to make sure no one was going to be a bitch. The only ones paying attention to them were Lydia, who had a smirk on her face and looked to the television after being caught staring, and Scott, who was grinning and held up two not-so-discreet thumbs up.

They had their first kiss on the couch, too. Stiles was rambling about some gossip going around the high school, and Derek was eating chocolate-covered pretzels and pretending to listen.

 _"So apparently she cheated on him with his best friend, and that's, like, not cool, I'd be so heartbroken if you were to sleep with Scott, but I know that wouldn't happen because I trust you guys and-"_

 _"Stiles?"_

 _"Yes, Derek?"_

Derek pressed his lips to Stiles'. You could say 'fireworks went off' or some mushy shit like that. It was pretty nice. _"Shut up."_ he says once it's over.

The teen looked like he was going to explode into a pile of glitter and rainbows and all things happy; his eyes were still closed, his cheeks and lips were red, and his heart was going insane - good insane. _"Okay."_

Ugh.  
Why must this place hold such beautiful memories?

* * *

Derek watches a few more probably low-budget Asian movies before turning the TV off and cleaning up everything. After the plate is washed, he faintly smells Isaac, and aroma gets stronger by the second. He must be stopping by.

Once the smell is greater and the teen's noises are louder, he opens the door.

Isaac raises his eyebrows. "I didn't expect you to answer so quickly. Or at all, if I'm honest."

"Yeah? _I_ didn't expect a visitor. You here to chew me out?"

"No! I wasn't planning on yelling at you! I'm definitely not brave enough for it, even if I wanted to. I.. do want to talk to you about it, though, about him."

Derek stares at Isaac for a bit, trying to read the boy as if he's a book. Not nervous... Not angry...  
He steps aside and allows the beta to enter.

Isaac immediately takes a seat on the couch, and Derek sits next to him.

"I don't think it's your fault.., but I don't want to say it's Stiles' either."

That's not at all what Derek expected the blond to say.

He gives a curt nod.

"I think what he did was wrong.. He shouldn't have said that stuff to you, and he shouldn't be keeping secrets from you..," Isaac hesitates before looking up into Derek's eyes. "I noticed it, too, that he's been acting weird."

Derek's tempted to smile, but he doesn't have the will nor reputation to. "Good to know I'm not just goin' crazy. What all have you noticed?"

"He flinches when someone goes to touch him, but his heart and breathing stay normal, and he just has this distant look in his eyes.. He also kind of seems to be even more clingy? Like, he looks really broken at school, especially when Scott isn't around him."

"Interesting.. Does.. does he.. smell weird to you?"

"No, and that's what confuses me. Someone, or some _thing_ , some _how_ is hurting him right under our noses. ..How about you..?"

Derek slowly nods, realization flooding over him. "Yeah.. He does.."

Isaac's eyes grow wide, letting Derek know that's he's understanding now, too. "It's someone _we_ know but _you_ don't. That's why he smells off to you."

Derek furrows his brows. "It must be happening at school."

"That doesn't make sense, though. Someone's always with him when we're at school, he's almost never alone. Surely a teacher wouldn't allow him to get hurt in the classroom."

"Well, where else would he go?"

"I don't know. Jungle, maybe?"

"You.. think that Stiles goes to a club and dances or sleeps with a guy, and then covers it up with chemicals..?"

Isaac gives a small, sheepish smile. "Not really, no. It was just a suggestion."

Derek nods and looks to the floor. "I know he isn't cheating, or trying to. Some asshole must putting their hands on him. I'm _going_ to find out who it is," he slowly looks back up at Isaac. "and I'm going to destroy them."


	3. Searching

Derek doesn't sleep that night. His mind refuses to stop working, to stop thinking about the brash homicidal feeling punching his chest roughly and repeatedly.

Someone is hurting Stiles. Someone is robbing him of his beautiful smile, stealing his contagious melodic laughter, taking away him.

So Derek needs to hurt that someone in return.  
It's only fair.

He wants nothing more than to track down whatever bastard is torturing the boy and tear their sorry ass limb from limb. He wants to hear their pained screams of pure agony. He wants to watch the life leave their eyes. He wants to tear out their organs and eat them for every meal. He craves nothing more than to have their blood on his hands.

Well, okay, he craves Stiles' happiness and security a bit more than that.

But instead of committing coldblooded (yet well deserved) murder, he mopes around the house all day, cleaning things that don't need to be cleaned and watching B-movies (some of which should be considered F-movies: these "special effects" are shit) to keep his mind off everything. In fact, he scrubs the already spotless counters three times within a two hour window.

He's sweeping the already perfectly clean floor at around five when he smells him. The sadness and anxiety is strong, even at such a faraway distance. Derek feels the strain of his heartstrings, how they feel like they could pop at any second. How can he as someone with relatively decent morals be pissed off at someone else for hurting Stiles when he's doing it himself, too?

Derek stays still and stares at the floor as the scent's intensity grows. It isn't unusual for Stiles' heart to beat so quickly, but this time, it cuts him real deep. Seeing him, talking to him, is probably - most likely - just going to add salt to the wounds.

Though, it could also help him lick them clean. Derek isn't much of an optimist.

In a short amount of moments that feel both like mere seconds and eternity, Stiles is in front of the door. His pulse is louder and quicker. His breathing is slow but shallow. Derek can feel the way the muscles in the teenager's chest constrict, and because of that, his do the same.

"Derek?" he says it quietly to hide just how deep the pain is, but Derek can hear it, and feel it, all too well. "Um, can we talk?"

Derek continues staring at the floor. Yes, he wants to talk to Stiles, but talking - or, Stiles' lack of it - is what got them into this mess in the first place. What if one of them fucks up again?

Damn it. He's acting like a child.

He approaches the door slowly, unlocks it even slower, and opens it even slower than that.

He's acting a lot like a child.

The two silently look at each other for a bit before Derek decides it's time to man the fuck up.

"Don't make a mess on the floor. I just cleaned it."

He lets Stiles in. The boy looks around the room as if it were the first time he's seeing it, paying specific attention to the very clean floor.

Derek closes the door, probably a little bit too harshly. "Talk."

Stiles looks over and starts immediately spewing out the inevitable long-winded ramble, "I'm sorry, Derek.. I really am. I didn't mean it, honest, it was just dumb word vomit. I just.. I don't like being attacked, you know? Physically sucks, and verbally sucks just as bad, especially by someone so close to me. Well, I mean, no - okay, you didn't do anything wrong, Derek. I was just being an ass. I hopped onto the defense for no reason. I know that I've been acting really shady lately, and I'm really sorry. I do love you."

Derek takes a couple seconds to process the monologue and let it soak in. "I know, Stiles. I believe you."

The room's aura becomes a lot less somber as Stiles radiates hope. "So, you forgive me? Really, that easily?"

"No. Not that easily."

The happiness falls along with Stiles' heart. "Oh."

He feels like he's the main character in some cheesy and overly-dramatic young adult romance novel, or maybe a fucking daytime soap opera (because what's the difference, anyway?), but the words need to be said: they are the truth, after all, the truth he longs for so desperately. "I won't forgive you until you tell me what's wrong. I can't stand the way you've been acting recently, and I'm sick of pretending like I don't notice it. I want to know who or what the fuck is hurting you."

Stiles' heartbeat speeds up again; he looks to the floor and bites his bottom lip. "I was afraid you'd say that.."

Derek is frankly sick of this shit, but he isn't about to go off on his currently extremely vulnerable boyfriend. "Stiles. I'm genuinely worried about you. Isaac noticed it, too, and he's concerned about you. Tell me why you've been so off. I can help, all of us will."

The teenager looks at the floor a bit longer before slowly looking up into Derek's eyes with an unreadable look on his face, though he smells like nothing but worry and orange soda. "Do you really want to know?"


End file.
